Saturday, January 16, 2010

"The educated class" turned out to be not that educated – if, by "educated," you mean knowing stuff. They were dazzled by Obama: My former National Review colleague Christopher Buckley wrote cooing paeans to his “first-class intellect” and “temperament.” I used to joke that “temperament” was for the Obammysoxers of “the educated class” what hair was to Tiger Beat reporters. But you don't really need analogies. As David Brooks noted after his first meeting with Obama, "I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president." And once you raised your eyes above pant level it only got better: "Our national oratorical superhero," gushed New York magazine, "a honey-tongued Frankenfusion of Lincoln, Gandhi, Cicero, Jesus, and all our most cherished national acronyms (MLK, JFK, RFK, FDR)."

Where'd that guy go? "People once thought Obama could sound eloquent reading the phone book," wrote Michael Gersonin The Washington Postlast week. "Now, whatever the topic, it often sounds as though he is."

If the educated class's pant legs weren't as perfectly creased as Obama's, that's because they were soaking wet. While the smart set were demonstrating all the sober forensic analysis of a Jonas Brothersaudience, the naysayers were looking at the actual policies: What is this going to cost me? And my children? And the country? A week before the presidential election, I wrote in this space:

"Settled democratic societies rarely vote to 'go left.' Yet oddly enough that's where they've all gone. In its assumptions about the size of the state and the role of government, almost every advanced nation is more left than it was, and getting lefter."

For the most part, that's just the ratchet effect of Big Government, growing, expanding, remorselessly, under cover of darkness. What happened this past year is that Obama and the Democratic Congressmade it explicit, and did it in daylight. And, while Barack may be cool and stellar if you're as gullible as "the educated class," Nancy Pelosiand Ben Nelson most certainly aren't: There's no klieg light of celebrity to dazzle you from the very obvious reality that they're spending your money way faster than you can afford and with no inclination to stop.

"The educated class" is apparently too educated to grasp this insufficiently nuanced point.

Friday, January 15, 2010

For the last 30 years, I’ve devoted the better part of my life to frightening you, trying my best to make you believe that you are weak, vulnerable, dependent and at risk. I know what’s good for you. You don’t. I’ve tried hard for three decades to defy the laws of nature and return you to infancy, cradled in your mommy’s arm, suckling at her breast, all warm and cozy, not a care in the world. I am the tip of the spear of the liberal nanny state. I am ANCHORMAN!

Actually, I’m mostly serious. For the better part of my adult life, I’ve worked as an anchor and reporter at CBS, NBC and ABC affiliated newsrooms across the country — often complaining about the nanny-state liberalism that infects so much of news coverage. Arguably, local news is a more insidious and destructive force than the widely accepted liberal bias of networks and other national components of mainstream media. After all, study after study has demonstrated that local news is more widely watched — and, more importantly, more trusted than other forms of mainstream media. There is a case to be made that the steady drumbeat of hyped-up threats — SUV’s that roll over, kitchen-counter bacteria, road rage, swine flu, amber alerts and the stations’ willingness to enlist governments and institutions to solve those “perceived” problems, actually drives a lot of bad and unnecessary public policy.

But it’s a formula that has worked as a cash cow for your local TV station. It is no accident that most local TV stations market themselves with nanny-state slogans: “Channel 2: Working for you!” or “ABC 6: On your side!” You might say those slogans are a subtler version of, “NBC 5: Making your boo-boos all better!”

"Last year Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or the so-called Stimulus Bill). The U.S. Department of Energy’s office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) received $16.8 billion of those ARRA funds to be used to promote green energy and conservation programs including the popular $1,500 tax credit for homeowners who install energy-efficient windows. The Assistant Secretary of Energy, Cathy Zoi, is responsible for oversight in disbursing these stimulus funds.

"Ms. Zoi is married to Robin Roy, a top executive at Serious Materials, a privately held manufacturer of 'sustainable green building materials' located in California. On the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure submitted by Ms. Zoi to the White House Ethics office as part of her confirmation, Ms. Zoi disclosed ownership with her spouse of 120,000 vested and unvested stock options in Serious Materials, a company her office regulates and that she may profit from."

This spot near the confluence of Monument and Fountain creeks was littered with good intentions.

Trashed with good intentions, actually. And then burned.

Colorado Springs police say people donated boxes of clothes, food and sundries to a homeless camp near Cimarron Street and Interstate 25 around Christmas. Most of it went unused, was strewn about a wide swath of creek-side property and recently lit on fire, one of the worst messes officials have seen around the camps.

“What they tried to do, it flipped on them 180 degrees and now it’s just waste,” said code enforcement officer Jeff Robinson, of the donors.

Police invited the media for a cleanup day at the site Thursday, to show why they say well-wishers should not donate items directly to the homeless. Authorities also want to show, at a time when City Council is considering a law to ban camping on public land, how the proliferation of camps is marring the landscape and the creeks.

“I think it’s gotten out of hand with allowing them to camp here,” said Officer Brett Iverson, of the police Homeless Outreach Team.

The city stopped enforcing a ban on public land camping in 2008, after criticism of their tactics and uncertain legalities, and what had been a few isolated campsites has grown to at least 140 tents, mostly along Fountain and Monument creeks, areas with popular hiking and biking trails.

The site visited Thursday looked as if a bomb full of relief supplies had exploded. Iverson said a group of homeless men in their 20s recently abandoned the site, first setting most of the donated goods on fire.

Bagels, loaves of bread, canned food and candy canes were strewn about the creek-side in a ring of tents and massive boxes, mingling with pillows, blankets, mattresses and clothes. And most of it was charred and black. Piles of toilet paper and feces showed that the bank of Monument Creek had served as the camp latrine.

From the the beaver state of Oregon, who hasn't had a conservative in state state government since Lewis and Clark drank a few liquid breads in the area.

In the case of Oregon, even some "progressives" are starting to understand that you can't kill the goose that delivers the golden eggs.............

A great beauty of the American federal system is that any of the 50 states can offer its policies as an experiment for others. So the nation owes some gratitude to Oregon for testing whether it is possible for a state to tax its way from deep recession to prosperity.

Oregon's unemployment rate is 11.1%, among the nation's highest. But Oregonians are now voting by mail whether to endorse a pair of tax increases passed by the legislature last year: one to raise the state's top personal income tax, to 11% from 9%, and another to raise the business income tax, to 7.9% from 6.6%. Both tax hikes would be retroactive to January 1, 2009.

The legislature and governor argue that only the state's wealthiest 2.2% percent of residents will pay this tab. Nonetheless, the liberal Portland Oregonian has editorialized against the new taxes, which it says would target "the very businesses and employers that Oregon is depending on to lead an economic recovery, start hiring again and pay the wages that support state services."

The late 1980's and early 1990's saw a rash of sex abuse prosecutions of day care employees. Wiki even has a entry for the witch hunts.

During that time, Dorothy Rabinowitz did some excellent journalistic pieces on the prosecutorial misconduct of these cases (and won a Pulitzer Prize for her work) and wouldn't you know Martha Coakley was one of those prosecutors.....

In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a commutation of Gerald's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board, reputed to be the toughest in the country, voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted.

Editorials in every major and minor paper in the state applauded the Board's findings. District Attorney Coakley was not idle either, and quickly set about organizing the parents and children in the case, bringing them to meetings with Acting Gov. Jane Swift, to persuade her to reject the board's ruling. Ms. Coakley also worked the press, setting up a special interview so that the now adult accusers could tell reporters, once more, of the tortures they had suffered at the hands of the Amiraults, and of their panic at the prospect of Gerald going free.

On Feb. 20, 2002, six months after the Board of Pardons issued its findings, the governor denied Gerald's commutation.

Gerald Amirault spent nearly two years more in prison before being granted parole in 2004. He would be released, with conditions not quite approximating that of a free man. He was declared a level three sex offender—among the consequences of his refusal, like that of his mother and sister, to "take responsibility" by confessing his crimes. He is required to wear, at all times, an electronic tracking device; to report, in a notebook, each time he leaves the house and returns; to obey a curfew confining him to his home between 11:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. He may not travel at all through certain areas (presumably those where his alleged victims live). He can, under these circumstances, find no regular employment.

The Amirault family is nonetheless grateful that they are together again.

Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was "formidable" and that she was entirely convinced "those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants."

What does this say about her candidacy? (Ms. Coakley declined to be interviewed.) If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat. It is little short of wonderful to hear now of Ms. Coakley's concern for the rights of terror suspects at Guantanamo—her urgent call for the protection of the right to the presumption of innocence.

If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason.

After talking with a number of clients this past week, I think we can now attach the adjective "malaise" to the business community.

It's not so much the current situation but the long term prospects of having employees in this country.

Nearly every priority with our current president and congress involves making it more and more expensive to hire employees. Just yesterday, one of my clients brought in his workers comp statement for a tree cutting operation. Granted tree cutting is a very dangerous job and this particular employer does have a claim in the past five years, which precludes him from getting a group rating (that's Ohio workers comp jibberish). None the less, his rate went up to 70%. That means for the cutter he pays $25.00/hr, he has to ante up another $18.00 just for workers comp. With FICA match, he's already into an employee for $45.00 an hour before you even consider benefits.

Let's say you start a tree cutting business today. Your worker's comp rate in Ohio starts at 50%. I'd like to see any liberal make that work.

But hey don't just take my word for it. Take the word of a liberal regarding our current economic malaise...........

Rather than acting as a prudent guardian of the public good in a time of economic turbulence and hardship, Obama and the Democratic Congress have hurried to check the boxes on their partisan wish list precisely when the nation most needed a restorative break from transformative ambition.

It’s not as though the administration doesn’t understand the vital importance of stability. Consider a recent comment from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. "[B]usinesses want certainty," Geithner said. "They need certainty so they can make long-term plans today. And that’s why it’s so important that Congress gets health care behind us, that we bring financial reform in place so people know what the rules of the game are."

Geithner is right that business needs certainty about the rules of the game in order to make long-term plans. And the government probably did need to step in to the financial sector once it started to implode. But every other marquee initiative introduced by the Obama administration has hampered economic recovery by casting the future of the economy even further into doubt. To have waited for the economy to stabilize would have been to let a serious crisis go to waste.

Geithner makes it sound as if a debate over the health-care system -- a debate over the structure of the institutions that now account for one sixth of all spending in the economy -- simply fell from the sky and needs to be resolved ASAP in to restore clarity about the economic rules of the game. But added uncertainty about the nature of the health-care system was consciously introduced by Obama and congressional Democrats during the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

And that’s not all. The administration didn’t need to nationalize GM, the country’s largest automaker, but it did it anyway. Existing law was up to the task of efficiently dissolving failed corporations, without adding another dangerous too-big-to-fail bailout precedent. How about the ongoing attempt to empower labor unions, and thereby to alter the relationship between employers and employees, by abolishing secret ballots in workplace votes over unionization? Is a high tide of unemployment the right time to fight that fight? Legislation to install a cap and trade carbon trading system -- a system meant to reach into every corner of the economy -- certainly didn’t need to be introduced during a profound recession, but Democrats insisted on it anyway. One might think that at least the stimulus legislation was called for by circumstance, but it certainly didn’t have to take the form of a porktastic carnival of government spending, from $4 billion to shore up California’s state budget to $1.5 million for a new golf course club house in Roseville, Minnesota .

It is totally predictable that an attempt to get the maximum political mileage and the most far-reaching structural changes from an economic crisis would chill new investment and encourage a wary, wait-and-see attitude among the entrepreneurs and businesspeople who keep the economy moving. That the administration chose to go for the political gusto anyway reveals an all-too-familiar set of warped priorities.

This is what I find most curious. If now is a bad time to introduce some of this stuff because it stagnates employment in bad times, what make someone think there is actually a good time to introduce this crap?

Here's a rebuttal to Paul Krugman's endorsement of life in France..........

Hey, I can play that game! I was in France as recently as last week, and took a look around as well. Here's what I saw:

* Lots of beautiful old buildings, stylish people, elegantly designed bridges, and fancy restaurants offering delicious food! * Craploads of ugly graffiti, including on some of the aforementioned beautiful old buildings. * Lots of drunk homeless people, including in the front hallway of the beautiful old building where I stayed. * Shops closed, often by government diktat, precisely when you might want to frequent them--during lunchtime, say; or a dinner-only restaurant at 6:59 p.m. * Routine splotches of dogshit on the sidewalks (though in fairness, the trendlines are going in the right direction on this one).

The conversation with the girl allegedly took place on Feb. 7, 2009, but the police investigation investigation lasted until November. Ritter was arrested on Nov. 9 and charged with unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation.

Ritter appeared for his preliminary hearing on Dec. 17 and waived the felony charge of unlawful contact with a minor. He remains free on $25,000 bail.

Ritter — born William Scott Ritter Jr. — is a former Marine who reportedly met his second wife, Marina, while working as a counterintelligence officer in the former Soviet Union.

"I came to Delmar ... to put roots down, to raise a family and live a normal middle-class American life," Ritter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2002.

A press conference on the matter to be held by the Barrett Township Police Department is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday. Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Michael Rakaczewski will prosecute the case.

A press release issued in November by the Barrett Township police noted that the incident wasn't the first time Ritter had been arrested on similar charges, but that he had not been formally charged.

Ritter was reportedly charged in a June 2001 sex sting in New York, but the case was dismissed. He had been charged with attempted child endangerment after arranging to meet a person he thought was a 16-year-old girl at a fast-food restaurant. The girl was actually an undercover police officer.

The New York Post reported Ritter was caught in a similar case in April 2001 involving a 14-year-old girl, but he was never charged.

First, let me offer that I think these stings are a monumental waste of time. Exactly how many actual 15 year olds are looking to hook up with a 40 plus year old? Way too many governmental resources are frittered away on crimes against no one.

Second, even though I think law enforcement has better things to do, Ritter should get time for being a monumental dumb ass; not once, not twice but three times he's been involved with one of these stings.

Three, obviously this guy has a tremendous sexual compulsion, he guess he was just born that way. I thought we proved with homosexuality that everyone has their needs yet we make Scott Ritter's illegal for a victimless crime? Maybe we should allow him to marry a computer with a 15 year old avatar on it so he can get his rocks off legally.

The White House has a lot of empathy when it comes top bank consumers aka nearly all of us......

The White House press briefing is under way as we speak, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about whether the White House's proposed new tax on banks would merely be passed on to consumers. Gibbs' response, via the twitter feed of David Corn from Politics Daily, is rather astonishing:

That's right, if the White House is responsible for making you pay more for banking services, well tough -- you can just find another bank. The logic behind the tax is shaky to begin with -- who trusts bankers to cut their precious executive compensation in favor of taking care of their customers? -- but then the arrogance of insisting taxpayers reconfigure all their financial dealings should the White House continue to adversely meddle with their banks is beyond the pale.

If you provide the IRS or other government entities with fraudulent information you get fined and/or go to jail.

If you are a government official, you get to be called senator......

The Obama administration claims a dubious "Keynesian" multiplier of 1.5 to feed the Democrats' thirst for big spending. The administration's idea is that virtually all their spending creates jobs for unemployed people and that additional rounds of spending create still more—raising income by $1.50 for each dollar of government spending. Economists differ on such multipliers, with many leading figures pegging them at well under 1.0 as the government spending in part replaces private spending and jobs. But all agree that every dollar of spending requires a present value of a dollar of future taxes, which distorts decisions to work, save, and invest and raises the cost of the dollar of spending to well over a dollar. Thus, only spending with large societal benefits is justified, a criterion unlikely to be met by much current spending (perusing the projects on recovery.gov doesn't inspire confidence).

Even more blatant is the numbers game being used to justify health-insurance reform legislation, which claims to greatly expand coverage, decrease health-insurance costs, and reduce the deficit. That magic flows easily from counting 10 years of dubious Medicare "savings" and tax hikes, but only six years of spending; assuming large cuts in doctor reimbursements that later will be cancelled; and making the states (other than Sen. Ben Nelson's Nebraska) pay a big share of the cost by expanding Medicaid eligibility. The Medicare "savings" and payroll tax hikes are counted twice—first to help pay for expanded coverage, and then to claim to extend the life of Medicare.

One piece of good news: The public isn't believing much of this out-of-control spin. Large majorities believe the health-care legislation will raise their insurance costs and increase the budget deficit. Most Americans are highly skeptical of the claims of climate extremists. And they have a more realistic reaction to the extraordinary deterioration in our public finances than do the president and Congress.

A city schoolteacher removed from the classroom more than seven years ago for alleged misconduct -- and who continued to receive a full paycheck the entire time -- should be fired immediately, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ordered Tuesday.

The ruling was the latest turn in the Los Angeles Unified School District's long battle to terminate Matthew Kim, a former special education teacher at Grant High School in Van Nuys. Kim had been accused of touching co-workers' breasts and making improper advances and comments toward students.

He was removed from the classroom in 2002 and required to report to a district office every workday as his case wound through the disciplinary system. Though he continued to receive up to $68,000 in annual pay plus benefits, he was given no duties.

He has been sidelined with pay longer than any other teacher disciplined by the district. L.A. Unified has spent more than $2 million on his salary and legal costs.

More than 60 years ago, the city gave the Chicago Dwellings Association a noble mission -- provide affordable housing for people with low and moderate incomes.

In recent years, the nonprofit's four apartment buildings also have become a lucrative income source for the organization's president, Christine M.J. Oliver.

In 2008, Oliver was paid about $685,000 in annual compensation from CDA and its management firm -- an amount that shocked local housing experts, nonprofit consultants and even a former board member of the Chicago Dwellings Association.

Housing and nonprofit experts said Oliver's compensation is at least three times higher than that received by chief executives of other local nonprofit housing development corporations.

"It's clearly absurd," said Jay Readey, an attorney who specializes in affordable housing and community development and is an adjunct professor at DePaul University's law school.

Michael Barone with an excellent piece on the educated class v. tea partiers..........

In his New York Times column last week, David Brooks contrasted "the educated class," which supports Barack Obama and his liberal worldview, with the tea party movement, "a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against, ... the concentrated power of the educated class."

Many conservatives read Brooks as putting down the tea partiers. I think he was indicating distaste for both sides. "I'm not a fan" of the tea party movement, he wrote, but he also noted, "Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the year."

Still, it sounds like Brooks was indulging the conceit of so many liberals that they are, well, simply smarter than conservatives.

But when you look back over the surges of enthusiasm in the politics of the last two years, you see something like this: The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance.

Remember those rapturous crowds that swooned at Barack Obama's rhetoric. "We are the change we are seeking," he proclaimed. "We will be able to look back and tell our children," that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

A lot of style there, but not very much substance. A Brookings Institution scholar who produced nothing more than that would soon be looking for a new job.

A court hearing was postponed for a teen accused in the brutal home invasion, beating, rape and robbery of a Liberty Township woman.

The sad thing is; this isn't the news worthy part of this article........

The hearing for the teen was postponed until Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. because no parent showed up to a scheduled hearing Tuesday as of late noon, court officials said.The court has appointed an attorney and guardian ad litem to represent the child whether or not a parent chooses to come to court Wednesday.

How much do you want to bet this kid is a total side effect of the Ohio welfare system.

From the Queen City of Cincinnati, who hasn't had a conservative in city government since the ice age.........

After three burglaries in three weeks, Bashar Albustami watched Monday as bars were installed on his store, Wireless Technology on West McMillan Street, in a bustling block near University of Cincinnati's campus home to popular eateries like Thai Express and Mac's Pizza Pub.

Police are looking for the three men who participated in a "smash and grab" at the store early Saturday morning. They say two people smashed through the front door, taking the cash register and some merchandise. A third man - likely acting as a lookout - is also wanted.

"We have a good (camera) system here but it's hard to get these people," Albustami said. "I think if they did not get caught the word spreads to others, who say 'I went into the store and it was an easy ride.'"

But Albustami said it won't be anymore, he's putting up the bars and metal sliding doors that will protect the windows and his livelihood.

"We don't want it to look like a jail and we don't want to give people the idea that this is an unsafe area," he said. "But this is hurting all the people I support - it affects all of us."

I'm familiar with this area and I'm going to guess that Obama took this area 80-20.

See, when you open a business in "Progress" city, as part of your business investment you need to make allowances for bars on windows, security systems, additional police patrols, etc.

By the way, do you think prospective, law abiding residents notice the bars on windows when they're looking for a place to live?

Monday, January 11, 2010

Being a Bengal's fan means always having free time for your "honey dew" list in January. I guess technically the Bengals did show up for a game Saturday but Bengal mediocrity and chokedom dominated the day.

Since the last Bengals playoff victory was in 1990 along with exactly 2 winning season in 18 seasons, the Bengals qualify as the worst professional sports franchise in history. That's saying something when you compare them with the Clippers, Nationals, Raiders, Browns, and Lions, oh my!

Now Mike, Katie and the rest of the Brownettes are working feverishly on those 2010 season ticket renewals and like sheep, the low IQ of your average Bengals fan will be there to suck them up; thus continuing generational incompetence for perpetuity.

So if you are a person of marginal intelligence, start putting your money away for that next season of mediocrity and enabling a horrible ownership group.

What's so funny is how so many of these idiots who buy Bengals tickets are always decrying "corporate welfare". Well what do you call giving a douche bag owner more millions?

U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman hosted a meeting between Israeli officials and a defense-contracting firm in which he had invested money — and made a big profit, a Daily News probe has found.

The Queens Democrat put no money down when he obtained private stock in the company, Xenonics Inc., relying on $14,000 borrowed in 2002 from the company's top shareholder, a longtime friend.

The sweetheart loan required no collateral and had no written payback date, a potential violation of House ethics rules.

When the company went public, its stock soared. Ackerman says he repaid the loan at 6% interest and sold the stock for more than $100,000 in 2005 and 2006.

House ethics rules bar members of Congress from using Congressional resources to promote commercial enterprises, stating:"The prohibition against use of House resources to support unofficial undertakings clearly applies to support of business endeavors."

Remember the good old days when car hops served food to your car and Bush was a slave to BIG OIL and the reason for $3.00 gasoline......

Oil prices jumped above $83 a barrel Monday in Asia amid signs of strong Chinese demand for crude and a weakening U.S. dollar.

Benchmark crude for February delivery was up 80 cents to $83.55 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Friday, the contract rose 9 cents to settle at $82.75.

China said Sunday that oil imports rose 14 percent last year to a record high in December, part of a 56 percent surge in overall imports last month. The better than expected Chinese figures helped investors brush off Friday's disappointing U.S. jobless report, which showed the economy lost 85,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate was steady at 10 percent.

$3.00 a gallon gasoline works well for the unemployed right now. When do we get our Obama in a cardigan sweater speech?

The average temperature in December 2009 was 30.2 F. This was -3.2 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 14th coolest December in 115 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

2.88 inches of precipitation fell in December. This was 0.65 inches more than the 1901-2000 average, the 11th wettest such month on record. The precipitation trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.02 inches per decade.

Apparently, some folks are a little put off with the stereotypes reinforced on Jersey Shore.

Let me offer this. My ex-wife was from Wilmington Delaware. She had friends and relatives all along the east coast. We spent time at Rehoboth beach as parts along the Jersey Shore. Every stereotype portrayed by this show isn't a stereotype...... it's the truth.

The coastal media types like to portray midwesterners and southerners as yaahoos but I don't think I've ever met a larger collection of dumb shits as I have from entering "The Shor".

The funny part is how they believe they have this aura of east coast sophistication as they say things like "Yo, can you pass me the f%#king potatoes."

So for all yute Jursie types. If you don't want to be type cast as a bunch of derelict dumb shits, don't be from Jersey.

From the Golden State of California who hasn't had a conservative in state government since the summer of love......

Kevin Starr, author of an eight-volume -- so far -- history of the (formerly) Golden State, says California is "on the verge" of becoming something without an American precedent -- "a failed state." William Voegeli, writing in the Claremont Review of Books, tartly says that "Rome wasn't sacked in a day, and California didn't become Argentina overnight." Indeed.

It took years for liberalism's redistributive itch to create an income tax so steeply progressive that it prompts the flight from the state of wealth-creators: "Between 1990 and 2007," Voegeli writes, "some 3.4 million more Americans moved from California to one of the other 49 states than moved to California from another state."

And the state's income tax -- liberalism codified -- intensifies the effects of business cycles on the state's revenue stream: During booms, the stream surges and stimulates government spending; during contractions, revenues dwindle but the new government spending continues. Voegeli says that if California's spending had grown no faster than population growth and inflation from 1992 to 2006, it would have been $65 billion less in 2006, and per capita government outlays then would have equaled not those of Somalia or Mississippi but of Oregon, which is hardly "a hellish paradigm of Social Darwinism."

It took years for liberalism's mania for micromanaging life with entangling regulations to make California's once creative economy resemble Gulliver immobilized by the Lilliputians' many threads. The state, which between 1990 and 2007 lost 26 percent of its factory jobs and 35 percent of its high-tech manufacturing jobs, ranks behind only New York, another of liberalism's laboratories, in the number of outward-bound moving vans.

It took years for compassionate liberalism to make California's welfare menu contribute to the state becoming an importer of Mexico's poverty. It took years for servile liberalism to turn the state into what Voegeli calls a "unionocracy," run by and for unionized public employees, such as public safety employees who can retire at 50 and receive 90 percent of the final year's pay for life.